Monday, April 27, 2009

After a decade working as a human rights advocate in New Zealand, Afghanistan, the Gaza Strip and Timor-Leste, Marianne returned to New Zealand in 2008 to write down some of the extraordinary stories she had gathered along the way. Her work experiences range from heading up a provincial office of the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan, providing human rights advice to the Government of Timor-Leste and working as international legal and media advisor to the extraordinary Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza. "Living in the midst of conflict," she says, "My friends in these war-torn countries have taught me how to practice my own brand of personal peace." Today Marianne divides her time between writing, working as a policy advisor and advocate/lobbyist for Oxfam New Zealand (a not-for-profit international development agency dedicated to finding lasting solutions to poverty and injustice) meditation practice, training to be a yoga teacher, learning to surf and post-graduate studies in psychology. Her current writing project is a memoir about her life and work in Afghanistan, and you can read more about her experiences at Zen and the Art of Peacekeeping.

1. In the context of your work, which bits of minutiae matter most?In human rights work the detail of the law matters. I'd like to think that empathy or ethics would be enough to compel us to act honorably towards our fellow human beings around the world, but governments and multi-nationals are going to care about the law.

In environmental work the detail of the often science matters. It's important to be sure that you actually understand the science if you are going to try to motivate people to make changes to their lifestyle based on that science. I'm not a scientist and it takes effort for me to make sense of climate models and emissions reductions scenarios, but I've had to learn.

2. Which bits matter least?Ironically, I think the answer is the same as to question 1, i.e. the law and the science. You've got to get them right if you are going to get out of the starters block in your campaign for change, but then you have to understand that they won't get you much further. You need to move on pretty quickly to the forces that will motivate people to change, and at that point you have the choice to play to people's weaknesses (fear, insecurity, anger) or to their strengths (empathy, hope, optimism). Take a guess which I prefer.

In writing I struggle to think of minutiae that doesn't matter - it all matters: spelling, grammar, punctuation, length, tone, pace, rhythm, point of view, vocabulary. If any of those are off then the reader is likely to be distracted by them, and the emotional power of the piece will be lost. I still get them wrong, but I know that it matters when I do.

3. In the context of your life, what types of minutiae once seemed important, but have since fallen by the wayside? Why?That's a tough question. The only minutiae I ever really cared about in my childhood were words and tidiness. Even as a child I liked a tidy room and could spend days in the company of a well-written book. They both remain as important to me as they ever were. My sister tells me that if I ever have children I'll learn to care less about the tidiness. But, as yet, that is an unproven theory.

4. What types of minutiae, if any, have you had to train yourself to pay closer attention to?With the exception of words and neatness, pretty much all of them. I've had to learn to pay attention to most of the minutiae of life. In my first job as a lawyer I tried to convince my boss that since I had a "big picture" brain he should let me work on the overall strategy for our case and leave him to read through the piles of documents looking for details. He wasn't convinced. Over the years I've learned that minutiae matters, but if I can delegate them to someone else I always will. These days my boyfriend is the most likely candidate. He has, for example, a wonderful capacity to check whether the picture is going to be lined up straight before he bangs in the nail.

5. Just for kicks -- what are your favorite bits of minutiae (personal, from a book, a piece of music, moment in a movie, etc.)? The tiny changes that appear in our vegetable garden each day, a tomato starting to turn red, a new tendril on the cucumber plant, a zucchini flower blossoming. Mary Oliver's poems.

Emma Alvarez Gibson

I write copy that hits just the right nerve--be it as simple as a bio or as intensive as a whole new campaign.

Some other things about me: in my quest to pack several lifetimes into one, I have: produced a zine, which sold at a big-name bookstore in West Hollywood; created an online magazine for teenage girls (Lulu Magazine, now defunct); started a theater company; written, produced and performed original theater; written, sung and recorded music with the band Agent Vertigo; and sold my handmade goods via my Etsy shop. I am married to the best man on the planet, with whom I share a delightful 3-year-old boy; I quite enjoy typography and gin; and harbor a fervent desire to a) speak every language in the world and b) move to New Zealand, despite my intense and disproportionately loyal love for the City of Angels.

In No Particular Order: Things To Do Before Shuffling Off

1. Own and live in a big house by the ocean2. Sing in a band3. Tend a prolific garden of my own4. Live in New Zealand5. Publish a novel or book of short stories6. Sing onstage with Neil Finn (preferably the song Nails In My Feet)7. Become fluent in French8. Learn conversational Japanese9. Make more money freelancing than working for The Man10. Visit Paris11. Own a Labrador (this requires owning a yard as well)12. Record music with a band13. Earn a degree in linguistics14. Send spiritual/emotional support regularly to people who are incarcerated for religious beliefs, as well as financial support to their families15. Get really good at practicing peace16. Learn to look my fear of my own anger in the face, and dismantle its power17. Return to Italy and England18. Visit Antarctica19. Hike regularly20. Meet Clint Eastwood21. Be a buyer for a store that sells amazing, beautiful, strange wonders22. Find the haircut that suits me best23. Find and marry a man who is handsome, clever, strong, sensitive, tough, independent, loving, kind, handy, a good cook and treats me like a queen24. Have the bulk of my diet be whole, healthy, organic foods25. Be free from diabetes26. Be free from headaches27. See some of the equipment from Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic voyages28. See (and touch!!) Frank Worsley's notes from the Endurance voyage29. Visit Ireland and sing a traditional song accompanied by musicians in a pub

The Best Parts.

"Given that we can only live a small part of what there is in us--what happens with the rest?" Night Train to Lisbon, Pascal Mercier

"Those who have an orphan's sense of history love history." Divisadero, Michael Ondaatje

"Was this what came from thoughts of time running out and death: that all of sudden you didn't know anymore what you wanted? That you didn't know your own will anymore? That you lost the obvious familiarity with your own wishes? And in this way became strange and a problem to yourself?" Night Train to Lisbon, Pascal Mercier

"Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places." Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino

"He was thin, like some lost animal, some idea." Anil's Ghost, Michael Ondaatje

"There remained the big envelope. Katie opened it slowly. Inside was a beautiful pink satin heart with lace edges. She sucked in her breath and turned the card over. No name was signed. Who--? Katie stared around the room. And saw Edwin Jones just looking away, the tips of his ears bright pink, as pink as the satin heart. So! Katie John let out her breath. There was a silly prickling around her eyeballs, and she blinked her eyes quickly. No one gave satin hearts to tomboys." Depend on Katie John, Mary Calhoun

"My God, don't they know? This stuff is simulacra of simulacra. A diluted tincture of Ralph Lauren, who had himself diluted the glory days of Brooks Brothers, who themselves had stepped on the product of Jermyn Street and Savile Row, flavoring their ready-to-wear with liberal lashings of polo knit and regimental stripes. But Tommy surely is the null point, the black hole. There must be some Tommy Hilfiger event horizon, beyond which it is impossible to be more derivative, more removed from the source, more devoid of soul. Or so she hopes, and doesn't know, but suspects in her heart that this in fact is what accounts for his long ubiquity." Pattern Recognition, William Gibson

"This was sunstroke or dengue fever or malaria. When they got back to Colombo she would have tests done. 'It's the sun,' Sarath murmured. 'I'll buy you a bigger hat. I'll buy you a bigger hat. I'll buy you a bigger hat.'" Anil's Ghost, Michael Ondaatje

"To be able to part from something, he thought as the train started moving, you had to confront it in a way that created internal distance. You had to turn the unspoken, diffuse self-understanding it had wrapped around you into a clarity that showed what it meant to you. And that meant it had to congeal into something with distinct contours." Night Train to Lisbon, Pascal Mercier

"There is a great history of people being given the wrong book, at some key moment in their lives." Divisadero, Michael Ondaatje